Masquerade’s Mate

[ Masquerade's Mate from Ellora's Cave ]
[ Masquerade Match anthology paperback from EC ]
[ Masquerade's Mate Kindle from Amazon ]
[ Masquerade Match anthology paperback from Amazon ]
[ LARGE PRINT Masquerade Match anth. paperback from Amazon ]

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~ Details ~

~ Outline ~

~ Reviews ~

~ Excerpt ~

~ Author’s Note ~

~ Also of Interest ~

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Details

EROTIC HISTORICAL ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

If she tells him who she really is, she will lose the man she loves.  If she honours his highest values and does her duty, then he will be hanged.

Available now.   Masquerade’s Mate is available as a single title story electronically, or in paperback as part of the Masquerade Match anthology.  See the Author’s Note for how this anthology, and Masquerade’s Mate came into being.

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Outline

Stuart Sutherland-Bruce arrives back in England after being posted to China as a member of the English diplomatic corps. He meets the astonishingly beautiful Bian, an exotic woman who proceeds to turn his life upside down with her mysteries and the power of his desire for her. As she continues to astonish him at every turn with the unexpectedness of her life and her responses to him, he falls deeply in love with her. She is an enigma, yet she has taken his heart.

But Bian did not wander into Stuart’s life accidentally. She has also returned from China with express orders to become intimate with him, and find proof that he has been giving English secrets to the Chinese. Yet as she works her spells on Stuart, she discovers that he does not seem to be the traitor she thought him to be. In fact, he is a good man, who loves his country, and puts duty above all else. Bian feels a pain she has never felt before. If she tells him who she really is, she will lose the man she loves. If she honours Stuart’s highest values and does her duty, then Stuart will be tried for espionage and hanged.

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Reviews

Ms. Cooper-Posey has written a book with characters that quickly grab the reader’s interest and keep it glued to the pages. Bian is the kind of heroine that makes us want to join her in the novel. Strong, independent, and far ahead of her time, she is worthy of a hero like Stuart. Together they are creatures of passion and suspense as the they draw us through a tangled web to an exciting and intense climax.

Mira Morgan for Between Your Sheets.

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Excerpt

It took two days of letter exchanges to Baring’s secretary before Stuart managed to learn that Bian did not live at Baring’s townhouse and to acquire her address. There was no easy way to ask after a lady’s address and not betray one’s attentions but Stuart knew a few indirect but effective paths to such information. He used them all to coax the information from Baring.

On the third morning he presented himself at the red brick townhouse in a little mews off Adam’s Row in Mayfair, while his cab waited obediently at the curb. It was old but well maintained and in summer would be shaded by two magnificent oaks that stood in front of it. Many leaves of the oaks were golden now and some were already drifting to the footpath.

It was a respectable address and a well-presented house. Just as everything about Miss Bian appeared to be reputable and elegant.

For the last three days Stuart had been replaying the moments he had sat next to her and re-examining every word. Bian had been a model of deportment, he had reluctantly concluded. Her swift verbal parries had been no more than a hostess might exchange over a dinner table if she wished to provoke the conversation among her guests. As he had been the only guest, he had chaffed under the stimulus.

In no way had she given word or signal that she was anything other than a well-bred and well-behaved lady.

Regardless, Stuart had tossed in his empty bed for two nights, unable to dismiss her from his mind. She had a hidden quality that drew his attention like filings to a magnet…or else he was simply going out of his mind. And because he could not locate even a hint of this hidden quality in anything she had said or done, Stuart had truly begun to wonder if he was imagining things.

For that reason he was delivering the bracelet in person. He needed to see her again. He needed to find even a hint of that hidden quality. He would sit in her drawing room and play the perfect gentleman all day, if necessary, until he saw the element in her that would not leave him in peace.

That was, if she forgave him for not calling ahead in the first place.

He rang the bell and prepared to wait but was surprised when it was answered almost immediately. The maid took his card, showed him in and hurried over to the big, closed doors on the other side of the foyer, where she knocked gently on the door and waited.

Stuart watched, puzzled, as the door was opened a few inches and the maid pushed the card through the crack. The door was shut on her again. She smiled reassuringly at him before moving down the hallway to the back of the house, which left him alone in the foyer, cooling his heels.

He looked around the empty hall. This was not what a woman like Bian would consider proper, surely?

The recently closed door was suddenly flung open. Bian herself stepped through. And Stuart could feel his heart literally stammer to a stop, before it managed to recover and hurry on, hurting with each beat.

She wore…what was she wearing? It took him a moment to identify the garment simply because he would not have equated a silk dressing robe with the middle of a Wednesday afternoon. The robe was too large for her tiny frame. As she hurried toward him, the wide neck slid down one shoulder and dropped off altogether, revealing a creamy shoulder and the smooth, flawless skin of her upper breast and neck.

Is she naked beneath that robe? he found himself wondering, with genuine bewilderment touched by a swiftly-evoked craving. There was too much flesh on display for her to be wearing any undergarments and the curves the robe outlined were too soft to be the product of corsetry.

Not only did the robe hang from one shoulder but it was so ridiculously long that it trailed behind her like a ball gown, which pulled the fronts of the robe open as she walked.

Bare feet…bare ankles…bare calves… Stuart found himself clutching the top of his cane as he focused on her shapely limbs as they flashed beneath the opening of the robe, until she came to a stop before him, her hand out to greet him and a warm smile on her face.

For a moment he was genuinely unable to form a coherent thought. Her appearance was quite simply shocking.

He lifted her hand to bow over it but a puppet would have executed the movement more smoothly.

She did not seem to mind. “Lord Sutherland-Bruce,” she acknowledged. “How kind of you to call on me.”

“I…I seem to have arrived at an awkward moment.” It was stilted, proper and not at all what he wanted to say. Or do. He could barely tear his gaze away from the soft mound outlined by the silk clinging to her chest. He forced himself to look her in the eye.

“An awkward moment? Not at all. Why do you say that?” She looked puzzled.

He lifted a hand and gestured helplessly at her robe.

She actually lifted the robe with her hand, which opened the panels again and allowed him to glimpse a knee. “In my own home, I prefer to be comfortable. Please, come in, won’t you?”

She tucked her small hand under his elbow and turned to face the door she had emerged from. “I have a friend visiting—George—but you mustn’t mind him. He comes here for the solitude rather than the company.”

Stuart allowed himself to be walked through the doorway. The room beyond was large and filled with comfortable seats and lined with books. It was a thinker’s room—medieval maps behind glass hung on the walls and a writing desk stood under one of the tall arched windows.

There was a man with a salt and pepper beard sitting cross-legged almost perfectly in the centre of the big Persian rug covering the middle of the floor. He was quite naked.

Stuart could not help but stare.

“That’s George,” she explained unnecessarily. “But he’s probably not even aware you’re there, so don’t worry about introductions.”

He glanced at the pipe, hose and bowl next to the man called George. “Opium?” he asked, astounded.

“Yes, of course, you would be familiar with it after your time in China.” She did not seem perturbed.

On the contrary, Stuart could feel his heart creak. There had been just too many surprises since he had knocked on her door. “You allow opium to be smoked in your house?”

“Good lord, no. But George…well, George is a special case. He was posted to the east, much like you and he found himself unable to halt the habit, even when he returned to London. But he is a very efficient Member of Parliament…should the people of Britain lose a valuable representative because of a personal weakness?”

He swallowed. “You have a slippery way of stating affairs,” he said.

“He asks only for discretion and understanding and a small piece of carpet. I will not judge him. Not when he is a friend.”

Stuart glanced at George again. Whenever his enslaved mind wandered, it was clearly a pleasant world. George’s spindly cock stood sharply at attention.

Stuart glanced at Bian’s bare shoulder. “How good a friend is he?” he asked and was astonished at the degree of anger that emerged in his voice.

At his sharp tone, George stirred. His eyes opened to a thin crescent. “Good enough, my dear fellow.” His voice was strong and well rounded by years of shouting across the House. “But never that good.”

Bian smiled openly. Stuart was unsure whether the man had insulted her or not. There was very little about the last few minutes that made complete sense to him and the pounding of his heart was proof of it.

He realized that George was getting slowly to his feet and more unpleasant surprise spurted through him.

“George, you really shouldn’t get up, you know,” Bian chided him.

“When there’s a gentleman caller in the house? Now, Bian…” He walked over to them, taking a staggering, rounded route across the beautiful Persian rug. Stuart realized that George was looking directly at him. A shiver slithered through him but he held his ground.

George smiled at Stuart, showing a complete disregard for his lack of attire. “You’re a handsome one, then.”

“George…” Bian said softly. Warningly.

George smiled at Stuart. “Bian is such a lovely child, is she not? I can well imagine your jealousy, old chap but really, it’s all for naught.” And despite his opium-induced stupor, George threaded his hand smoothly into the openings of both Stuart’s overcoat and jacket and cupped his testicles through his trousers. The long fingers stroked gently, before Stuart’s stunned mind and muscles could react. He staggered backward, gripping George’s wrist and wrenching it up and out of the way.

“I’ve shot men at dawn for less,” Stuart grated. His voice was hoarse.

George was not resisting the cruel twist on his forearm. He stared passively at Stuart, a small smile on his face. “You were about to make a mistake,” he said softly. “I merely wanted to disabuse you of the notion.”

“Enough,” Bian said, with surprising firmness. She put her tiny hands on both George and Stuart’s forearms. “Lord Sutherland-Bruce, I suggest you let him go. George, don’t say another word or I’ll let him strangle you and save me the bother. Are you listening, George?”

She was familiar with the patchy daze opium users could fall into, Stuart realized, or she would not have made sure she was being heard.

George blinked took a slow breath. “Yes,” he said at last. “Yes, I hear. Alas.” An immense, profound sadness etched itself on his face and all animation drained from it.

Stuart let George’s arm loose as he watched the transformation.

Bian pushed at George’s shoulders. “Go back to your pipe,” she said gently. “Go and forget.”

“Yes,” he murmured, letting himself be turned away. He wended his way back to the long pipe and collapsed in a heap of long, pale white limbs, his head hanging.

“What happened to him?” Stuart breathed. “Why does he seek the pipe still?”

Bian glanced at George, then shook her head to indicate Stuart should keep his voice down. She tucked her hand into his elbow. “Thank you so much for returning my bracelet, by the way.”

“Ah, yes.” He pulled the jewelry from his fob pocket and handed it to her. Then he realized that she was leading him to the door he had just stepped through. The door that led to the front hall. “Where are you taking me?”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to show you out, Lord Sutherland-Bruce. Now is not the most convenient time for me.”

The words spilled from him before he could prevent them. “Why, do you have another man in your bedroom?” Then he braced himself for the face-slapping that was the very minimum he deserved for such an outrageous accusation. But she had provoked him into it, damn it! The robe that she barely wore, the naked man in her lounge room… The woman clearly lived a life of extreme bohemianism. She was the complete opposite of what he had thought her to be.

For the second time his mind had tottered, unable to cope with the sheer weight of sensational shock. The jealousy, petty though it was, was the one almost normal emotion he could clutch at and use to anchor himself.

But Bian did not slap him. Instead her mouth curved up into a delicious smile that made her dimples dance. “Why on earth would I bother with taking a man upstairs? My sofa is wide and very comfortable.”

He could actually feel his jaw start to unhinge but before he could begin to even attempt to formulate a response, she squeezed his forearm. “Besides,” she said, stepping out into the foyer. “I am attending the opening night at the Opera House. They’re such grand affairs. A lady must have time to properly prepare.”

The maid already had the front door open and pushed his hat and cane into his nerveless fingers.

“Good morning, Lord Sutherland-Bruce. Thank you so much for dropping by,” Bian said with all the formal politeness of any upper-class lady.

Suddenly Stuart was back upon the footpath, the front door shut behind him and with no clear idea of how he had reached the spot. He climbed back into his cab, trying to piece together what had just happened.

Where had the so very proper lady disappeared to? Yet…and yet…if he had not been utterly convinced of her respectability, the last ten minutes would have him thinking she was a lady of easy virtue…except that she drank tea with future dukes and lords and socialized with the upper crust of London society…but she had no title that she had shared with him…

Stuart shook his head as he watched Hyde Park roll by the cab windows. The conflicting sides of Bian’s nature made her completely unpredictable. If he couldn’t predict how she would act, how could he understand her?

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Author’s Note

Not all stories are the product of an author’s divine inspiration. Some of them have a more ordinary birth as a result of an author sweating out the need to meet the next deadline and an absolute vacuum for inspiration.

Masquerade’s Mate was a result of neither. It’s no secret that Julia Templeton and I have co-written a couple of sensual historical romance novels under the pen name Anastasia Black. Julia writes almost exclusively in the historical romance field. I roam around the historical periods, but nearly always write some sort of romantic suspense story, wherever it happens to be set. Writing as Anastasia Black was a great break from both our usual styles, and the two titles, Forbidden, and the sequel, Dangerous Beauty (both from Ellora’s Cave) still continue to do well. We don’t plan on writing any more titles under the Anastasia Black pen name, but we’ve remained good friends.

In late October last year (2008), Julia made the observation that EC didn’t have another another title quite like her novella, Masquerade. No other title matched its length (35,000 words — a good afternoon’s entertainment), the historical setting (Regency England), the style (light and frothy) — and yet still throbbed with sensuality. Because we’re friends, I nudged my elbow in her side via cyberspace, and threatened to write a matching novella, just to ruin her smug satisfaction.

“Uh-huh,” she said, deadpan. “Do it. Go on.”

I could hear the gauntlet hitting the floorboards in those five words. Julia knows I prefer Victorian settings to Regency, and light and frothy stories are something I’ve never been able to pull off.

I have also been accused of an inability to write anything short to save my life. She also knows I can’t resist a professional challenge of this kind.

It took me twenty-four hours to drop all my commitments, clear the decks, and begin writing a story that matched Masquerade.

I called it, quite simply, Masquerade’s Mate, and that was where the inspiration for the story itself came from. Julia’s novella, Masquerade, is a Regency romance, featuring twin girls who swap identities in order to avoid unwanted marriages. It’s light, frothy, fun, and takes place during the spring and summer. I preserved the uniqueness of Julia’s story by going in the opposite direction on every count. Masquerade’s Mate is a dark Victorian romantic suspense, featuring twin guys, one of whom is the hero, Stuart, and there is identity swapping involved, too. “Masquerade’s Mate” is actually a person — the heroine, Bian, who is the secret love child of an English duke, and a Vietnamese princess. “Bian” is Vietnamese for “secretive, hidden”. While Julia’s story is light and fun, mine is dark and dangerous — a romantic suspense involving spies and danger. It’s set in autumn and winter. Mine is the Yang to Julia’s Yin.

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Also of Interest

I rave about the cover of Masquerade’s Mate in Honestly, Really, I Love My New Cover

Available now.

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